I write this evening irritated with your avoidance of my correspondence. I have now contacted you a number of times by email and have yet to receive any response or even basic acknowledgment. I have not been successful with getting into telephone communication with you and members of your department, if not yourself, have hung up on me numerous times.

It seems the word ‘animal’ is enough to shut down our lines of communication. No part of my correspondence to date has been inappropriate and I wrote with genuine interest regarding the university opting to ignore serious allegations brought forth by activists.

This is not about the university refusing to communicate with a single activist or activist group – you are not interested in discussing the use of animals at all, with anyone. It appears that the obvious is true – the University of Florida is comfortable with the public having NO information about how animals are used for research but very are content with using public funds to support it. Your silence speaks volumes.

At this point I’ve given up on the prospect that you might honestly and professionally answer any of my previous questions but I would like to ask you one more: if you do not respond to serious allegations on behalf of the university, what is it that they pay you to do? What is your job description? You seem to have no interest in looking into matters of public concern, you don’t have the ability to communicate the university’s stance in regards to this matter, and you do not respond to your emails or answer your phone calls. Perhaps if your salary were to be diverted to the torture of monkeys the university could at least free the public of their financially complicity in sadism.

Eleventh Hour for Animals (the Florida-based chapter of Negotiation Is Over) are independent journalists protected by the First Amendment-based privilege that protects us from legal actions that threaten the integrity of our effort to gather and disseminate news. There is no intent, express or implied, to encourage any illegal activity and we assume no liability for how the information we publish will be used by any third party. All donations to Eleventh Hour go exclusively to legal fees and other actions taken directly to help the animals.